by Ron Jacobs
We’ve got to do more than mark their anniversaries and we’ve got to take the initiative. Leftists all around me complain that there is no left in the USA. If there isn’t I wonder, than who are you and who am I? Anarchists hit the streets with their fellow travelers; and the liberals against the US war on the world seem to be waiting for their savior-some kind of Democratic wolf in peacenik clothing, I assume. Meanwhile all around, death, destruction and deception go on. Congress votes another hundred billion for the war industry under the guise of staying the course and too much of the country is wondering if Mark McGwire took steroids and/or did Michael Jackson wore pajamas to court today.

In Iraq, the battle continues. Bombs in the streets and helicopter gunships in the air. Corrupt politicians behind military police checkpoints negotiate their place in a puppet government with one of their eyes on the monetary prize. One can almost hear the players saying, Ahmed Chalabi, please show us how you scammed the ideologues in Washington and then go away. It’s our turn at the trough now. Sooner or later, one or more of these leeches will lose their grip on the Pentagon monetary supply vein and fall into themselves like a college frat boy pledge trying to drink a fifth of whiskey in an hour. Puking their vanity and duplicity all over their freshly ironed overpriced clothing.
In the streets of Sadr City and Mosul, to name just a few zones where the occupiers dare not go unless accompanied by a tank or, at the very least, that behemoth they call the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Iraqi children and their parents face an indeterminate amount of time under the yoke of occupation. Elections fade into one’s memory quicker than the life they had before the invasion of 2003. Here in the US of A, we watch the misery unfold-those of us who bother to pay attention, anyhow. Everyone else just wants it all to go away. Why, they wonder, is this war a war? That’s not what they promised.

Of course, the US troops didn’t mean to kill that Italian intelligence officer. Even when the war is wrong, our soldiers only act with the noblest intentions.
Meanwhile, the larger national organizations that organize these rallies appear to be fighting over direction (a direction that the leaders of the organizations seem to have lost). The one led by liberals and others who appear only too eager to isolate the more radical elements of the movement and cozy up to the Democratic wing of the war party disses the other communist-inspired group. At the anniversary protests, it was the latter that got out the black and Latino communities and it was the liberals who got arrested. Go figure. Meanwhile, those of us who want to do something effective to end this war (and the “war on terror”) go to the rallies but ignore the national organizations and follow our own agendas or do nothing.
Bottom line-this war is a war fought to maintain and (if the war planners can pull it off) and expand the US empire. This means that the Democrats will only help the antiwar cause so much. After all, they profit from the current situation just like the GOP. To oppose this war at its fundamental level, we can’t look to the democrats. After all, Bill Clinton’s bombs and cruise missiles killed and destroyed with the same impunity as George Bush’s. The cause of most of the world’s problems is not George Bush, it’s US imperialism.

That imperialism is best represented off the battlefield by the nomination of Iraq War architect and all-around evildoer Paul Wolfowitz to the presidency of the World Bank. It is further represented by Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that it is Turkey’s refusal to allow their countryside to be used as a launchpad for the northern invasion of Iraq that is the reason there is still armed resistance to the US occupation. Domestically, it is represented by the continued destruction of social services, tax cuts for the rich, and more money for military recruiters who have failed to make their quota for the past two months at least. It is represented in the continued imprisonment of unknown numbers of immigrants and others without charges in Guantanamo Bay and who knows where else. It is further represented in the incredible numbers of people incarcerated in the United States, often for acts that are not even crimes in other countries.

Two years is how long the Bush war on Iraq has been going on, but the US war on those who either disagree with its plans or just don’t fit in to them has been going on considerably longer. The unfortunate fact of this latter war, however, is that very few people oppose it. Are we that bought off? Or are we just too busy trying to maintain the lifestyle we are accustomed to? Are these last two questions essentially the same question? Or better yet, are these last two years just a small example of what our future looks like? George Bush and his Book of Revelations Bible Study Group have got to be told that the Second Coming is not a utopian vision. Before we’re all blown to hell.
Full Article: counterpunch.org

We ARE all busy maintaining our lifestyles and we absolutely do not have the attention span to sustain a coherent anti-war movement. It’s recreation for college kids.I’ve had plenty of people tell me they have lost their taste for thinking about the war, because it is all ‘too depressing.’ The inevitable reckoning will be as much of a shock to the vast majority of the left as to everybody else in the U.S.

by Evelyn Pringle
Citing recommendations by the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFC), Bush wants to launch a nationwide mental illness screening program in government institutions, including the public school system, for all students from kindergarten up to the 12th grade.

The New Freedom Commission was established by an Executive Order Bush issued on April 29, 2002. According to a July 22, 2003, press release, the Commission recommends transforming America’s mental health care system.

ìAchieving this goal will require greater engagement and education of first line health care providers – primary care practitioners -and a greater focus on mental health care in institutions such as schools, child welfare programs, and the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The goal is integrated care that can screen, identify, and respond to problems early,î the Commission’s press release stated.

According to the NFC, its recommendations are being already being promoted in Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas; California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia;Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Montana; Nebraska; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; Utah; Virginia; Washington; West Virginia; Wisconsin; and Wyoming.

The truth is, this is nothing but another Bush profiteering scheme to implement a drug treatment program for use in the public institutions that will generate high volume sales of the relatively new, but inadequately tested, high-priced psychiatric drugs. If all goes as planned, the scheme will generate millions of new customers for the drug companies.
Full Article: counterpunch.org

The husband of a severely brain-damaged woman condemned to a slow death by starvation has launched a vitriolic attack on last-minute efforts to keep her alive.

After a week of political and legal manoeuvring, doctors at a Florida hospice chose to follow a long-standing order from a state judge to stop feeding Terri Schiavo, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. Without nourishment, she will die within three weeks.

Their actions defied the instructions of members of Congress, who issued subpoenas to attempt to block ‘the barbaric’ removal of her feeding tube on Friday just hours before the 1pm deadline set by George Greer, the Florida Circuit Court judge who has presided over the case for a decade.

One leading Republican has called the tube’s removal ‘the murder of a defenceless American citizen’.

However, the lawyer for Michael Schiavo, who insists that his wife never wanted to be kept alive artificially, has accused the Washington politicians of ‘acting like the Soviet Politburo’.

‘I feel like the government has just trampled all over my personal life,’ Schiavo said hours after nutrition to his 41-year-old wife was withdrawn for the third time since he began his fight with her family a decade ago.

‘It is incomprehensible that a government can walk all over somebody’s private judicial matter because of their own personal feelings. It is just horrible the way the government is acting. This is what Terri wanted. It is her wish.’
Full Article: observer.guardian.co.uk

NEW YORK (AP) – Anti-war activists marched in the streets of American cities big and small Saturday, stopping traffic and lying down alongside flag-draped cardboard coffins to mark the second anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

Some of the demonstrators were arrested in New York as they demanded that U.S. troops be brought home.

“This country was founded by acts of civil disobedience,” said David McReynolds, 75, of New York, as he marched along 42nd Street. “We have an obligation to make our resistance public and to say as clearly as we can that the war is illegal.”

In San Francisco, hundreds of protesters rallied in Dolores Park in the city’s Mission district, holding up posters with photographs of dead American soldiers. The protesters then marched to City Hall for another rally.

One protester dressed up like the hooded Iraqi prisoner in the famous photo taken of detainee abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. The woman was surrounded by others wearing masks of President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who were dancing to the song “Shout” by the Isley Brothers.

“This is a war of aggression,” said Ed McManus, 54, a Vietnam War veteran. “Bush has admitted by his actions and his deeds that he is a war criminal.”

Organizers encouraged civility at rallies in the city, where protests just after the war began were among the most vocal and angry in the country, with thousands of arrests and frequent conflicts between police and demonstrators.

Police wearing helmets and armed with batons lined the streets Saturday, but they reported no disturbances.

Across Europe, tens of thousands of protesters also packed streets and public parks to protest the war. In England, 45,000 people marched from London’s Hyde Park past the American Embassy to Trafalgar Square, while an estimated 15,000 people – some carrying signs reading “Murderer Bush, get out” – marched in Turkey.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

Police have issued a stark warning that mainland Britain faces a ‘substantial threat’ of an Irish republican bombing campaign, The Observer can reveal.

Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism section sent out an email about a new threat to businesses across London on Friday evening, following intelligence received from MI5 about an increase in activity from breakaway groups such as the Real IRA.

The chilling note, seen by The Observer, states: ‘Reporting indicates that dissident Irish republican terrorists are currently planning to mount attacks on the UK mainland.’
Full Article:observer.guardian.co.uk
Gosh these heavy-handed tactics are surprising coming from the Brits. They are usually slightly more subtle than their American cousins. I confidently predict that this latest flurry of events will fail to quash 900 years of Irish resistance to British occupation.

WASHINGTON, March 19 – Congressional leaders reached a compromise Saturday on legislation to force the case of Terri Schiavo into federal court, an extraordinary intervention intended to prolong the life of the brain-damaged woman whose condition has reignited a painful national debate over when medical treatment should be withdrawn.

Top lawmakers in both the House and the Senate said they hoped to pass the compromise bill as early as Sunday. They said it would allow Ms. Schiavo’s parents to ask a federal judge to restore her feeding tube on the ground that their daughter’s constitutional rights were being violated by the withholding of nutrition needed to keep her alive.

The White House announced late Saturday that President Bush, who was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., would make an unscheduled return on Sunday to Washington, where he would remain until early Monday in anticipation of signing the measure.

Conservative lawmakers scrambled to find a way to override a Florida judge’s order Friday to remove Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, has maintained for years that his wife would not want to be kept alive in her current state by artificial means.

Ms. Schiavo suffered extensive brain damage when her heart stopped briefly 15 years ago due to a potassium deficiency; she remains in what doctors have testified is a “persistent vegetative state.”
Full Article: nytimes.com

How, Constitutionally speaking, is it possible to remove a case from a state court and throw it into a federal one? Well, we didn’t think the Supremes would hear the Bush vs. Gore case either.
What is particularly grotesque about all this is having to listen to right-wing Republicans pleading for ‘the sanctity of human life.’ Since when? Thousands and thousands Iraqis and Afghanis don’t bother them. Torture doesn’t concern them. They are even willing to tolerate the deaths of 1500 American soldiers, as long as they are not their children.
They apparently believe that they should be the sole arbiters of who will live and who will die.

by The Bolivarian Circles of Aragua State, Venezuela!
Mar 17, 2005, 15:37
Greetings to all the peace marchers and US citizens from the people of Venezuela on this important day!

We congratulate you on your commitment to stopping the war in Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan. The great majority of the Venezuelan people are also in complete disagreement with the use of US military force to dominate the peoples of the Middle East and other countries, classified arbitrarily as the “Axis of Evil”. This march is vital to pressure the current Administration from desisting in its plans to invade other countries in search of oil or other primary materials, which will serve the pretensions and domination of the global corporate empire.

These countries threatened include Syria, Iran and our country…the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

One month ago, the US Navy sent an aircraft carrier and marines to the island of Curaçao, 46 miles from the Venezuelan coast. Our government was not notified of this maneuver, which is contrary to international laws and conventions. It was said that the marines were on Curaçao for Rest and Recreation! Blatant lies! This was outright intimidation!

There is written documentation that the Bush administration was involved in the coup d’etat in Venezuela of April 2002, the sabotage of our oil industry and lock out of workers in the so called general strike and economic sabotage of our economy in December 2002 – February 2003. The Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) and US Agency for International Development (USAID) have all been financing subversive, non-democratic groups of the traitorous Venezuelan opposition – to discredit our President, Hugo Chavez, with the aim of fomenting chaos and overthrowing the democratically elected government. They are using your tax dollars to do this… were you ever asked about the use of your money to subvert other nations?

You must be told the truth now……today……at this precise moment… President Chavez has faced 9 electoral or referendum contests from December 1998 to end October 2004, and has wiped the floor each time with the fascist opposition of our country.

What other world leader has gone to the polls 9 times in 6 years? Not one!
Full Article: axisoflogic.com

Military families and veterans are helping organize a major anti-war rally outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina that could draw several thousand people Saturday, the second anniversary of the Iraq war.

Groups such as Iraq Veterans Against The War and Gold Star Families for Peace, whose members have lost relatives in Iraq, will play a prominent role.

“We figured if we formed and used our grief in a positive way that could be very powerful,” says Cindy Sheehan, a member of Gold Star Families For Peace from Vacaville, Calif., near San Francisco.

Sheehan says U.S. soldiers in Iraq need to come home, but she knows her son will not be among them. Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in April during an ambush in the Sadr City section of Baghdad.

Groups like Gold Star Families For Peace, made up of 60 families, and Iraq Veterans Against the War, with nearly 200 members, were formed within the last nine months. The members were brought together by grief and opposition to the Iraq conflict. More than 1,500 U.S. service members have died in Iraq.

These new groups are one component of a national anti-war effort, says Andrew Pearson of the North Carolina Peace and Justice Coalition, one of the march’s organizers. Since the November elections, there has been “a strategic reorientation for the anti-war movement. And a lot of it coming from the direction of leadership of military families and veterans,” he says.
Full Article: usatoday.com

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — Mercury released primarily from coal-fired power plants may be contributing to an increase in the number of cases of autism, a Texas researcher said on Wednesday.

“The main finding is that for every thousand pounds of environmentally released mercury, we saw a 17 percent increase in autism rates,” she said in an interview.

About 48 tons of mercury are released into the air annually in the United States from hundreds of coal-burning plants.

The study looked at Texas county-by-county levels of mercury emissions recorded by the government and compared them to the rates of autism and special education services in 1,200 Texas school districts, Miller said.

“The study shows that there may be a very important connection between environmental exposure to mercury and the development of autism,” she said in an interview.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has said it does not know how many cases of autism there are in the country or whether the number has increased, but that the issue is under study.

Some experts estimate there are 1.5 million people in the United States with autism, most of them children, and say the number of cases has risen rapidly in recent years.
Full Article: commondreams.org (Reuters)

NAIROBI (Reuters) – East African peacemakers decided on Friday to send troops to Somalia from countries that do not border the lawless state, potentially defusing a constitutional standoff in Somalia’s interim government.

“There will be no personnel at all (from bordering countries),” said Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa of the decision by east African peace body IGAD.

“It is cognizant of the sensitivities of the people of Somalia.”

Influential Somali warlords and militant Islamists have promised to attack any troops from neighboring states — especially from traditional rival Ethiopia — if they deploy as part of a planned African Union peacekeeping force.

The communique issued by IGAD on Friday said “deployment will be undertaken by the remaining IGAD countries pending the deployment of the African Union force.”

The AU force has yet to be constituted, funded or given a deployment date.

President Abdullahi Yusuf, backed by Ethiopia, wants 7,500 AU and Arab League troops to help secure Somalia so his government can return home from Kenya, and has been adamant that border states be included.
Full Article: nytimes.com